I've recently bought a leasehold property in Great Shelford. Do I have any liability for service charges relating to a period prior to completion of my purchase?

In a situation where the service charge has already been demanded from the previous lessee and they have not paid you would not usually be personally liable for the arrears. However, your landlord may still be able to take action to forfeit the lease. It is an essential part of leasehold conveyancing for your conveyancer to be sure to have an up to date clear service charge receipt before completion of your purchase. If you have a mortgage this is likely to be a requirement of your lender.

If you purchase part way through an accounting year you may be liable for charges not yet demanded even if they relate to a period prior to your purchase. In such circumstances your conveyancer would normally arrange for the seller to set aside some money to cover their part of the period (usually called a service charge retention).

I am employed by a long established estate agent office in Great Shelford where we have witnessed a few flat sales put at risk due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have received inconsistent advice from local Great Shelford conveyancing firms. Can you clarify whether the vendor of a flat can commence the lease extension process for the purchaser on completion of the sale?

As long as the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to kick-start the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. The benefit of this is that the buyer can avoid having to wait 2 years for a lease extension. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed prior to, or simultaneously with completion of the disposal of the property.

Alternatively, it may be possible to agree the lease extension with the freeholder either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.

Can you provide any advice for leasehold conveyancing in Great Shelford from the perspective of saving time on the sale process?

• A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Great Shelford can be avoided where you appoint lawyers as soon as you market your property and request that they start to collate the leasehold information needed by the purchasers’ solicitors.
• Many freeholders or managing agents in Great Shelford levy fees for supplying management packs for a leasehold property. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management pack sought as soon as you have a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to receive management information is three weeks. It is the most frequent reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Great Shelford.

In the event that you altered the property did you need the Landlord’s permission? In particular have you laid down wooden flooring? Great Shelford leases often stipulate that internal structural alterations or installing wooden flooring necessitate a licence issued by the Landlord approving such changes. Where you fail to have the consents to hand you should not contact the landlord without contacting your lawyer first.

Some Great Shelford leases require Licence to Assign from the landlord. If this applies to your lease, you should place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers put in hand bank and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are financially capable of paying the yearly service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the service charge figures so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their solicitors.

If you have had any disputes with your landlord or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved prior to the flat being put on the market. The purchasers and their solicitors will be reluctant to purchase a property where a dispute is unsettled. You may need to swallow your pride and discharge any arrears of service charge or settle the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You are still duty bound to disclose details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as over as opposed to unsettled.

All being well we will complete our sale of a £175000 flat in Great Shelford in 8 days. The managing agents has quoted £384 for Certificate of Compliance, insurance certificate and previous years service charge statements. Is the landlord entitled to charge exorbitant fees for a flat conveyance in Great Shelford?

For the majority of leasehold sales in Great Shelford conveyancing will involve, questions about the management of a building inevitably needing to be answered directly by the freeholder or its agent, this includes :

• Completing pre-exchange enquiries
• Where consent is required before sale in Great Shelford
• Copies of the building insurance and schedule
• Deeds of covenant upon sale
• Registering of the assignment of the change of lessee after a sale

Your lawyer will have no control over the level of the charges for this information but the average costs for the information for Great Shelford leasehold property is £350. For Great Shelford conveyancing transactions it is customary for the seller to pay for these costs. The landlord or their agents are under no legal obligation to answer such questions most will be willing to do so - albeit often at exorbitant prices where the fees bear little relation to the work involved. Unfortunately there is no law that requires fixed charges for administrative tasks. Neither is there any legal time frame by which they are obliged to provide answers.

What makes a Great Shelford lease unmortgageable?

There is nothing unique about leasehold conveyancing in Great Shelford. Most leases are unique and drafting errors can result in certain sections are not included. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

• Repairing obligations to or maintain elements of the property
• A duty to insure the building
• Clauses dealing with recovering service charges for expenditure on the building or common parts.
• Maintenance charge proportions which don’t add up to the correct percentage

A defective lease will likely cause problems when trying to sell a property primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. HSBC Bank, Coventry Building Society, and Clydesdale all have express requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. If a mortgage lender believes that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

I acquired a ground floor flat in Great Shelford, conveyancing having been completed half a dozen years ago. Can you work out an approximate cost of a lease extension? Equivalent flats in Great Shelford with a long lease are worth £262,000. The ground rent is £45 invoiced every year. The lease ends on 21st October 2083

With only 57 years unexpired we estimate the price of your lease extension to range between £30,400 and £35,200 plus plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

The suggested premium range above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we are not able to provide a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive investigations. You should not use the figures in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt additional issues that need to be considered and clearly you want to be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not take any other action based on this information without first seeking the advice of a professional.

Other Topics

Lease Extensions in Great Shelford